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BobB-nw writes "Watch out Apple, here comes Nintendo. Nintendo plans to launch a new version of its popular DS portable gaming device with a camera and music player function, according to a report in the Sunday edition of The Nikkei Business Daily. The new version will have better wireless capability for connecting to the Internet and will cost under $189, the report said. It will be offered first in Japan, it said. The DS first went on sale in 2004, and a second version, called the DS Lite, debuted two years later in 2006. Both have sold extremely well, with worldwide sales of the DS products at 77.5 million units as of the end of June this year."

Once an SDK appears for whatever the platfrom, in addition to enabling MP3 support and running Linux (if not already supported, otherwise replace with *BSD), what are the two next thing that are compiled on absolutely whatever device ?- A port of Doom/Quake/Duke/Unreal/whatever latest opensource is still within hardware perfs.- A port of ZSnes/Gens/Mame/whatever emulator fits into the perfs of the machine.

Actually, it makes perfect sense. They wanted to distance themselves from the old brand - just by dint of the name, GameBoy has connotations of a (male) child's toy. The DS has seen success in much broader markets, just as the Wii has, and at least some fraction of that is due to the more approachable branding. Yes, people really do get hung up on names that much.

They threw the backwards compatibility in simply because it was convenient (the DS has an ARM7 processor that can be clocked down to behave identical to GBA hardware) and because the folks who actually care about such compatibility will know to look for it. Amusingly enough, Slashdot is the only site that I've ever seen confuse the name of the system... this isn't the first time they've done it.

They wanted to distance themselves from the old brand - just by dint of the name, GameBoy has connotations of a (male) child's toy.

Or they wanted to protect the "Gameboy" brand from the (then) threat of Sony's PSP with what they called the "third pillar" [kombo.com], a handheld with gimmicks like two screens, touch sensitivity, and a microphone. Only after DS exceeded all expectations ("It prints money!") did they let the Gameboy line quietly die.

I know you're right, but when my son upgraded to a DS he let us take his GBA; I replaced the cover with a pink one we ordered off ebay (and a new battery, as well), and gave it my daughter as a "GameGirl."

I suspect the "alongside" claim was more of a precautionary measure; if the DS had turned out to be a VirtualBoy-esqe flop, then they could discontinue it without it tarnishing the GameBoy brand and create a different successor.

Ha ha only serious. The cell phones I've had seem to be poorly-thought-out portable game consoles with a phone tacked on as an afterthought. If Nintendo made a game console with a phone added in, at least the gaming part wouldn't suck.

...the camera will be useful for any games? Something along the lines of how it was used with some Gizmondo games, or that weird card game with the PS2 EyeToy? And what about the media player functionality? Could this herald the appearance of games like Audiosurf, games that react to the music playing, on the DS?

Nintendo has generally been about not bloating its systems in the past. Why would they release a new DS with all this crap while it's still going strong?

Because it will make them trillions of more yen?

What if Nintendo has the expertise to add the new functions without ruining the existing game-play features? And there is also a chance it won't be called a "DS" and will be a new product line that won't affect the game-players.

Probably not, actually. DS units are still selling out, and Nintendo cannot sell a DS that it has not yet built.

What if Nintendo has the expertise to add the new functions without ruining the existing game-play features?

If it were entirely in Nintendo's hands that would be one thing, but it's not. Give third parties even the slightest chance to take the easy way out over putting in the effort to make quality games, and they'll take that way out every time.

But there's another factor to consider. I mainly play my DS when I'm out and about; at home I mostly spend my spare time on the PC. And unfortunately, even the coffee shops and public libraries seem to be mostly running WPA these days. Sure, the encryption key's readily available, but that doesn't help when the device is so behind the times.

I own both a DS Lite & an iPod Touch (1st gen). I enjoy both of them, though I have been getting a lot more use out of my iPod Touch in the last month or so. Most DS games have music, so I really don't see myself listening to different music while playing a game on the DS. Likewise, unless the DS will include an address book, calendar, e-mail, scientific calculator and web browser on board, plus the ability to sync with my computer & download free apps wirelessly, Apple has nothing to worry about.

Most DS games have music, so I really don't see myself listening to different music while playing a game on the DS. Likewise, unless the DS will include an address book, calendar, e-mail, scientific calculator and web browser on board

You just described the feature set of DSOrganize 3.1129, a very popular homebrew application for the Nintendo DS.

You just described the feature set of DSOrganize 3.1129, a very popular homebrew application for the Nintendo DS.

I appreciate the DS homebrew scene, but it's still not enough. I'd like to have these things on board the unit, not on a separate card I have to swap out with games. I can play a game on my iPod Touch, hit the home button and go right back into my other info. So still, until Nintendo includes these things on board, it's almost a completely different market than Apple.

When the DS Lite was introduced, the supply of aftermarket accessories for the DS dried up completely. I wonder if the same thing will happen to DS Lite accessories. It would make sense as it will help to drive sales for this new hardware release.

Probably not to existing games. WPA would need driver support, and the Wi-Fi driver is part of the game, not the DS firmware.

But in my opinion, WEP + MAC filtering is good enough. It won't prevent everyone from breaking into your network, but it still establishes an attacker's intent [wikipedia.org] to break into your network and diverts wardrivers to your neighbor's open network.

There's obviously some bits and bobs that exist outside of the game (hence why WFC settings persist from game to game)

This area of the firmware contains only settings, not code. The only Wi-Fi-related code in the DS firmware is code for the ad-hoc protocols used by PictoChat and DS Download Play, which don't use WEP or WPA.

This area of the firmware contains only settings, not code. The only Wi-Fi-related code in the DS firmware is code for the ad-hoc protocols used by PictoChat and DS Download Play, which don't use WEP or WPA.

That's actually in some battery-backed up SRAM - remove the battery and you'll see your DS reset to defaults (a good way to clear it before selling it).

There are several parts of the wifi puzzle. The first is the WiFi driver itself, which is probably in DS ROM since it's needed by ROM based utilities. Th

I think most of us saw this one coming, but the article is completely devoid of any information. First it's still just speculation that this is going to be the new announcement. For all any of us know it could be another new device to interact with the Wii. The only evidence the article even presents is that another news publication carried the rumor yesterday.

There's no mention of how they're going to add music and make it easy to put music on the device. There's no details on the camera either or even if the physical dimensions of the DS are going to be further reduced. Wouldn't it have been better to wait until Thursday when the product is actually announced and all of the details are released?

I don't mind a little speculation, but this had absolutely no substance to it at all. It's just a rumor repeated from another publication without anything of value added. Without the rest of the fluff about sales figures and release dates this article would have been one or two lines at most. What a complete waste of time.

I'd like to see more productivity apps for the DS. My son cracked the case of his DS, and I tried fixing it with a new case. It worked, but I guess I didn't plug in the secondary video cable too well because it acts all wonky sometimes; so I got him a new one and kept the old one for myself.

But I don't use it at all (it's stable when you are... it'd go wonky in the car when we hit a bump or something). I don't have any electronic organizers or anything, so I'd really like to see some productivity apps for it. I mean, it's got wifi and everything built in, it seems you should be able to do email, address books, calendars...

I know there is a homebrew group of people who are working on such things, but it seems like another giant pain. I don't have time to tinker. It's odd that Nintendo didn't see fit to release something along those lines themselves.

Buy a CycloDS Evolution, M3 Real, or other microSD-to-DS adapter. These are the size of a DS Game Card, and they usually come bundled with a microSD writer. You'll also need to buy a 2 GB microSD card.

Download homebrew apps and unzip them to the microSD card.

Put the microSD card in the DS adapter, put the adapter in the DS, and power on.

As far as anyone can tell, this rumored product is Nintendo's attempt to kill the market for microSD adapters that are also capable of running unlawful copies of DS games.

Yes. DS homebrew programs that use libfat [drunkencoders.com] can read and write the FAT16 or FAT32 file system on the microSD card inside the adapter using C standard library calls (fopen family). But if you buy an SD card bigger than 2 GB, you'll have to buy an adapter that supports SDHC.

Yes, the CycloDS which I have will let you store everything on the microsd card that inserts into the DS Slot1 card. The homebrew card is the shape of a regular DS game with a little slot on it for the removable microsd. The card is like 50 bucks, and you also need to provide your own microsd (8 gig is like 30-40 bucks I think).
Really easy to use, no friggin firmware flashing or hacking required. Plug and play in every sense of the word. Will also store your backup roms if you've made backups of your DS g

With an M3 Real you can use microSDHC cards. I have just over 60 games on mine and that takes up 2.89 GB. If I didn't have a 6GB card, I'd have to cut a lot and wouldn't have much room for music and movies OR I'd have to have a bunch of cards to swap around.

I'd recommend at least 6GB if you want to stick something in there and not have to bother with swapping the card (mine is a little finicky and I have to reseat it a couple times for any swap, so I don't care to do it if I don't have to).

I'd love to see some more language learning apps. The platform is perfect for that kind of thing. Unfortunately, the only ones I've seen are horrible--there are only three languages available (AFAIK) and in the one I bought (French) I've already spotted numerous errors in the first few lessons I've done (had a couple years of French in college). The concept is solid, though, and the interaction using the stylus is perfect.

The DS has 4MB of RAM. That's enough for productivity apps. Homebrew productivity apps also have access to the filesystem on the MicroSD card, so they can swap or do standard file I/O if they need it. Speed to/from the SD card is quite reasonable for a handheld platform like the DS.

The web browser is a different animal, the modern web page uses a lot of storage. I think the RAM cart is 16MB. I'm sure some of that is used for a page cache to make performance reasonable.

Homebrew productivity apps also have access to the filesystem on the MicroSD card, so they can swap or do standard file I/O if they need it.

And yet this is not relevant when discussing the DS proper, as Nintendo will not be making an SD card slot equipped cartridge available. Even if the unit has 4MB of RAM, it will be inherently limited vs. a PDA for a number of things:

For one thing it's carefully worded so that there won't be egg on the PR guy's face if it is announced. The biggest suspicious thing about that though, is that Nintendo's denials are almost always "Nintendo doesn't comment on rumours and speculation".

The 'larger screened' DS has been rumoured for over a year. Long rumoured Nintendo products almost always turn out to be true (look at the Ultra 64, Dolphin, Revolution, Nitro product codes for proof).

Nintendo DS sales are starting to slow (the PSP has gained popularity over it) and Nintendo always announce successors to handhelds just after they've peaked (DS was announced when the GBA was going strong). The graphics on the DS have long since peaked, developers really aren't able to squeeze any more out

adding all this extra stuff to a portable gaming console is just bloatware and evidence that the company doesn't have its priorities straight

We've discussed rumors of this on gbadev.org and pocketheaven.com. Consensus was that Nintendo might do this to make it less likely that people will buy adapters like SuperCard DS One, CycloDS Evolution, or M3 Real for video and then end up using them to pirate games.

Absolutely what I was thinking. If they beef up the encryption and can break the pirate cards, it's worth it to Nintendo. They just need enough of a carrot to get people to upgrade and I don't think a little-used camera and MP3 player are enough.

I wouldn't count on this report being correct. Nintendo has had a pure cash cow [gonintendo.com] with the Nintendo DS. Since it market does not appear to have slowed significantly or run into serious competition, why would they refresh the hardware? A few folks have suggested the iPhone as competition, but I don't see anyone purchasing iPhones as DS replacements. Instead, they appear to use their iPhone as a spectacular networked handset and the DS as a gaming platform. The market does not appear ready to confuse the two.

If we were talking about a BIOS update, I might believe you. However, Nintendo makes a profit on these machines. They're keeping it 'fresh and exciting'. Slowing 'arrr 4' isn't going to make them more money, at least not in comparison to how much they'll make if the features of the system are interesting to the market.

Pretty much. I can't think of any of them having bought a game since getting an R4. And none of them except me even uses any homebrew. One of my friends tried out a homebrew rhythm game, but wasn't impressed. I, on the other hand, have tons of homebrew that I use regularly. It wasn't the sole reason that I bought the R4, however, and anybody who thinks that most people who buy R4s DON'T use them to pirate games is kidding themselves.

I agree with you. As the DS isn't forced to be connected to the internet all the time like the Wii or XBox 360, there's little chance that a user would install a console firmware update that would brick a hacked firmware or disable Slot1/2 card. So they use the carrot instead of the stick - new shiny carrot vs your old machine that can play homebrew/backup roms but has poor wifi and no camera...

I agree with you. As the DS isn't forced to be connected to the internet all the time like the Wii or XBox 360, there's little chance that a user would install a console firmware update that would brick a hacked firmware or disable Slot1/2 card. So they use the carrot instead of the stick - new shiny carrot vs your old machine that can play homebrew/backup roms but has poor wifi and no camera...

OK, technically the Wii isn't "forced" to be connected to the internet all the time... You always have the option of not connecting the thing to your router - and if you do that, games will still just work. To my knowledge Nintendo doesn't push out firmware updates, either - they send you mails, suggesting you upgrade firmware, but that's it...

I don't think we'll see a DS refresh breaking any Slot-1 flashcarts, unless they also want to break compatibility with existing DS games.

Imagine the new DS taking a checksum of the ARM7 and ARM9 binaries from the inserted Game Card. The firmware has a list of the SHA-1 values of the first 3,000 or so releases. All releases after that are digitally signed with RSA in much the same way as DS Download Play clients and DS Download Station demos. So when the new DS loads a card, it'll take the SHA-1 as if it were a DS Download Play game. If it checks out against the signature, good. If the SHA-1 is on the whitelist, good. Otherwise, put "An Optio

The advantage of the DS as a gaming platform, is that if I lose/break my DS, I can buy a new one, and all my old games will continue to work. Or if a new model of DS comes out, I will most likely (according to past experience with Nintendo), be able to play all my old games on the new model. The same can't be said for the games. From my knowledge, when you buy a game for your iPod, it's tied to that hardware unit, and you can't transfer it to a new iPod.

The expected reply. Many companies have a policy to never support or deny rumors except with official product announcements so noone can fill in the gaps (e.g. if they were to deny all or most false rumors a refusal to comment will mean it's more likely the rumor is true).

You don't stay ahead of the game by standing still. If the DS wants to avoid competition springing up, it has to be a moving target.

There are some critical flaws in the DS that I'm surprised they've done nothing to fix. The most major is the lack of WPA support, forcing anyone who wants their DS to be network enabled to use WEP WAPs. (Say that five times...)

It's also not hard to see ways in which it could be improved while keeping within its mandate - the music feature seems more of a "me too" thing, but the camera sounds like something I can see Nintendo adding just to create another input device for DS developers to find new and original uses for. (If anyone has difficulty understanding what I mean here, then take the microphone on the DS. There's a subgame available for the DS where you inflate balloons by blowing into the microphone. Yeah. Now, think about that kind of lateral thinking applied to a camera.) Motion sensors would strike as obvious enhancements too.

I'm disappointed that Nintendo isn't doing more to enhance their current offerings. Releasing a more advanced Wii for a slightly higher price, while keeping the current one in production, would do much to manage demand for the unit while keeping sales and profits high.

These features probably couldn't be used for games unless they were bundled with the new DS, because they're not consistent across the DS hardware.

Generally speaking, add-on hardware tends to have much less of an impact in the gaming market than what the core hardware shipped with. You have to create games that work on ALL generations of hardware - that's the implied contract with customers. Consoles *shouldn't* be moving platforms. That would just alienate existing customers, and ultimately be a recipe

the only game i can think of that really uses a camera attachment is The Eye of Judgment on the PS3. so i can't see a lot of developers taking advantage of this new feature, especially as old DS owners won't be able to play the games which integrate the camera into the core gameplay.

that said, i think The Eye of Judgment is a very novel concept, and i wish more game developers would experiment with these types of innovative ideas.

and perhaps if the DS gets a decent music player, that'll compel Sony to make

I don't know if it is true or not but yes the DS is a pure cash cow. That is why they would do it.People will line up around the corner to get this. Nintendo will make a bigger mint. And the RnD will not cost that much. Nintendo has to keep the RnD department working anyway so why not push a new improved DS out the door.Heck people go nuts for a new Color of DS much like the IPod so why not a refresh.They might even cost less to make then the old ones as well.

An interesting business move if it turns out to be true. These aren't massive firmware upgrades that would invalidate old DS'es for newer games.
Instead, it would add two years or so to the lifetime of Nintendo's biggest success since the game boy.
I'd say it's a smart move.

That's a pretty good article. And in fact, it's the first evidence (IMHO) that this rumor might be true. i.e. That Nintendo is running the show on a Blue Ocean timetable completely independent of their competition. Otherwise such an announcement wouldn't make a lick of sense.

aside from the size and aesthetics, is their any difference in functionality between 1st gen DS and the DS lite?

the only console i own at the moment is the PSP, and while i love the system (it's a sweet piece of hardware) I am rather disappointed by Sony's attitude towards their customers and their mismanagement of the platform (why make PSP owners purchase a PS3 to access the PSN when the PSP already has wi-fi + web browser?).